November 29, 2009

A plea for help

Dear John:My wife is threatening to divorce me if I spend any more money on the boat. Can you help?--Desperate Dan, San Diego

Well, Dan, I’m sorry but I don’t think I can help. There are too many unknowns. How much work does your boat need? How much money have you spent already, to make your wife so mad? Has she made this threat before? Did it worry you? Did she back down? Will she back down next time?

Political correctness demands that I advise you to quit spending money on the boat and start patching up your marriage. But logically, the first question should be — which is more important to you, wife or boat? If you can’t have both in good working order, which one would you choose to spend the rest of your life with? Only you can answer that. (Hint — Whose picture do you have in your wallet next to the West Marine card?)

Have you considered taking your problem to Dr. Phil? His national audience of voyeuristic landlubbers might be fascinated to know how much it takes to outfit a boat in a half-decent wardrobe of sails and running rigging. Yachtsmen are all too often portrayed as filthy rich and incurably snobbish but you could make the case for the rest of us, the great majority of male sailors whose financial states compel them to hide from their wives the bills from the boatyard, the sailmaker, and the engine repair man.

Meanwhile, the only advice I can offer is that you should bone up on stuff like cooking supper, washing clothes, darning socks, and fixing buttons. Just in case.

Today’s ThoughtWhat counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.— George Levinger

Tailpiece“I see Old Moneybags finally got hitched to that chorus girl he’s been chasing for so long.”“Yeah, he spent a fortune on her, so he had to marry her for his money.”